(7/8) Be Strong and Straight

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Preaching programme in Hooghly district,
28 February 2019, evening, part 7
Translated from Bengali

Srila Prabhupad said, 'When I leave, I will not leave a single rupee for you all because you will fight even over one rupee. If I leave you any money, you will become lazy and none of you will preach about the Lord in this world then – you will only stay at the temple and eat. You will not care to practise anything – you will not engage in Hari-kirtan or preaching.'

Sometimes we see that people want to get something for themselves, so they start going to this house, that house and collect, perhaps, ten or twenty rupees at a time (there are also places where you can get a hundred rupees). People start doing this when some internal weakness comes. We must always be strong.

Devotee: ** Maharaj collected money like that.

That person is not all there. He actually went crazy and they had to chain him to restrain him. He would run around naked and when he saw some girl, he told her, 'I want to marry you!' He left the temple at some point, and one day when I was sitting in the office, he came back wearing filthy clothes. I could not even recognise him. He told me, 'Do you not recognise me? I am Rukmini!' Gurudev was in Dum Dum Park at that time, so I took him to Gurudev to decide what to do. Actually, he forced Gurudev to give him sannyas. Gurudev told me that he had written him a letter saying that if he did not give him sannyas, he would commit suicide and that Gurudev would be responsible for it. This is how he took sannyas. Gurudev said, 'Must I go to jail in my old age? Better I just give him sannyas.' He would always walk everywhere madly, often stark naked. He is still like that. When he comes to somebody's house, he takes off his clothes and goes to the bathroom... He is crazy. This has nothing to do with a sadhu's behaviour. He has a hospital certificate that he is crazy.

We have come to practise Krishna consciousness, so this is what we will do. We must practise Krishna consciousness following our guru and Vaishnavs with chastity. If we can live like that, we will get supreme benefit.

Instead of serving the Lord, we must not turn Him into our servant. 'Gurudev, give me this!', 'Gurudev, give me that!', 'Give me this', 'Give me that.' We cannot get something from the Lord, so we come to our guru and ask him for that. We come to gods and deposit some advance payment, saying, 'Give me money', 'Give me knowledge', 'Make me beautiful', 'Give me a nice wife', and so on. This is how we turn gods and the Supreme Lord into our servants. We expect gods to serve us. This is how people 'worship' Durga, Kali, Laksmi, Ganesh and other gods. They turn worshippable gods into bribe-takers. They come with some money, rice, bananas and other fruit and offer it to a Deity with the words, 'O Devi, please give me knowledge.' They always want to get something from them. We must not be like this.

We come to the Lord to serve Him. Why do we serve Him? Only with an aspiration to have devotion for Him. And if we cannot understand anything, we should just think, 'Gurudev said I must serve my guru, Vaishnavs and the Lord, so I am doing it. I do not need to know anything else. Gurudev said that I must follow ekadasi, so I do not need to think what result I will get by fasting on this or that ekadasi. Gurudev said I must fast, so I fast. I do not know all these other things.'

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Size: 25 Mb
Length: 51 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Steer Clear of Offences
2) Disciple's Life
3) Mahaprabhu's Standard of Cleanliness
4) Shift Your Priorities
5) Make No Mistake
6) Non-Negotiable Stance
7) Be Strong and Straight
8) Do Not Run After Knowledge